It’s a ceremony that’s been performed too many times lately, butthe honor guard at Loyd Star Volunteer Fire Department will bepresenting the colors again Monday.

That’s when Mike Herring, 50, a firefighter and leading firstresponder, will be buried. He was killed in an automobile accidentThursday on a country road in the heart of his community, becomingthe third Loyd Star volunteer to die in six months.

The firefighters at Loyd Star say they’re not superstitious aboutdeaths coming in threes. But after the death of the much-belovedHerring, they’re wishing hard and praying long that what they don’tbelieve in will end soon.

“I just hope it stops. It’s got to,” said fire chief Mark Porter.”It seems like during the last few months, I’ve been at the funeralhome way more than I want to be.”

Herring was killed around 11:40 a.m. Thursday when the vehicle hewas driving left the pavement and tumbled off California Road. JohnRiggs, death investigator with the Lincoln County Coroner’s Office,said the vehicle appears to have hit a ditch and flipped into theair, ejecting Herring.

“While it was in the air, he came out,” Riggs said. “He waspronounced dead at the scene.”

Herring was a 20-year member at Loyd Star, with a long history ofhelping others that included a stint as a paramedic with King’sDaughters Medical Center and membership in the American Red Cross’sdisaster team.

He leaves behind a wife, Maria, and two children. Funeral servicesare planned for Monday at 11 a.m. at Calvary Baptist Church inBogue Chitto, with visitation at Riverwood Family Funeral ServiceSunday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The firefighting and emergency response community in Lincoln Countyis taking it hard.

“It was like going to pick up a friend, a family member,” Riggssaid.

Loyd Star firefighter Jeremy Case said Herring – known on the radioas Loyd Star 561 – was the best first responder in Lincoln County,always the first on every scene.

On Wednesday, Herring was the first man on the scene at a smallhouse fire on the road he would die on a day later. When firetrucks arrived, he was fighting the fire in Crocs and sweatpants,spraying the side of a stranger’s mobile home to keep the fire fromleaping across and claiming a second structure.

“You can’t replace someone like that,” Case said. “He’ll be trulymissed in our department.”

Herring was even helpful to local law enforcement.

“I’ve known him for 15 years, and every time you dealt with him, hewas always wanting to go out of his way to help you,” said LincolnCounty Sheriff Steve Rushing. “You couldn’t ask for a nicerguy.”

When a firefighter dies, the emergency community calls it the endof his shift. At Loyd Star, too many shifts have ended.

Herring’s death is the third at that department since late summer2010, and the fourth in 18 months.

“Big” John Bennett, 45, died of a heart attack on July 9. On Oct.25, 28-year-old Josh Smith, then the department’s assistant chief,was found dead on the ground in the Texas oilfield where he worked.On June 2, 2009, Steve Davis, 34, an inactive Loyd Star member andBrookhaven firefighter, was killed in a plane crash in CopiahCounty.

They say they’re not superstitious, but the volunteers at Loyd Starseemed to know another among them was going to die.

“We discussed it at the last funeral. It comes in threes,” saidKirk Douglas, Loyd Star president. “This will be the third one in arow. Hopefully, the good Lord will spare us.”

Even the county’s leading firefighter may be on the verge ofbelieving.

“They say things come in threes, and sometimes that does seem to betrue. We’ve not ever been in this situation before,” said LincolnCounty Civil Defense Director Clifford Galey. “I personally hope… for Loyd Star’s sake that, if there is anything to the threes,this is the end of it.”

Loyd Star firefighter Emile Gennaro doesn’t believe in superstition- just luck.

He counts himself lucky for receiving Galey’s 10-25 code, whichcanceled all responders not yet on the scene at Herring’s wreck.Gennaro turned around at the Old Opry House on 550.

“I’m glad I didn’t go. I would kind of rather remember him like Isaw him last,” he said.